The Second Coming of the KKK by Linda Gordon

After another eclipse, the Klan roared back to life a third time in protest against the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, whose planned removal was the pretext for the “Unite the Right” rally there in August. After a long spell of quiescence, it reemerged into national prominence in the 1920s, reaching an all-time peak membership in 1924-a year, incidentally, that saw the dedication of various Confederate memorials, including the Robert E. It flourished first in the South after the Civil War, lynching and terrorizing African-Americans who tried to vote, and then gradually disbanded in the early 1870s under pressure from the federal government. The most notorious of all the currents in this dark river has been the Ku Klux Klan. In the 1930s, 16 million Americans regularly listened to the anti-Semitic radio rants of Father Charles E. Eugenics enthusiasts of the early twentieth century warned about the nation’s gene pool being polluted by ex-slaves, the feeble minded, and newcomers of inferior races. The Know Nothing Party of the 1850s viciously attacked Catholics and immigrants. We are, it appears, an increasingly inclusive nation.īut a parallel, much darker river runs through American history. And now the legal definition of marriage has broadened to include gays and lesbians. The Founding Fathers may have all been men, but in their wisdom they created a constitution that would later allow women to gain the vote. Yes, the country’s birth was tainted with the original sin of slavery, but Lincoln freed the slaves, the Supreme Court desegregated schools, and we finally elected a black president. Most of us who grow up in the United States learn a reassuring narrative of ever-expanding tolerance. Ku Klux Klan paraders, Muncie, Indiana, 1922

Ball State University Archives & Special Collections

The Second Coming of the KKK by Linda Gordon